BEIRUT – A United Nations spokesman says the relief agency supporting Palestinian refugees has resumed food distributions inside the rebel-held district of the Syrian capital that has suffered from crippling shortages of food and medicine for months.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA agency that administers Palestinian refugee camps around the Middle East, said in a statement Thursday that Syrian government granted access to relief workers to Yarmouk a day earlier after an 11-day halt.

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The Yarmouk refugee camp, located in southern Damascus, is one of the hardest-hit opposition enclaves under tight blockades imposed by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. At least 85 people have died in Yarmouk since mid-2013 as a result of starvation and illnesses exacerbated by hunger or lack of medical aid, the U.N. says.